Pastel Bird Art- Printed Photo Coloring Activity

Can’t draw? No worries, you don’t need to be able to draw to create awesome artwork with this pastel bird art- printed photo coloring activity.

If you have never done pastel art over a printed black and white photo you are missing out! This is an easy and very satisfying activity for all ages. From 4 to 104 anyone who loves art will love this activity!

Miss 8 came home from school a few weeks back and excitedly told me all about how her class colored over a printed photo of a tiger to create artwork. I have to admit that I had never heard about this technique before and wasn’t that sold on the idea. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I was emptying out her bag and saw an example of what she was talking about. It was really cool! She couldn’t take claim to it as a friend gave her her half-finished one to take home but I was really blown away with how effective it looked.

Today we are going to talk you through the activity and we provide you with some bird photos so you can do this pastel bird art- printed photo coloring activity at home. We will also tell you a very easy way to find your own images so you will have an endless choice of photos to use for this super fun art activity.

Pastel Bird Art- Printed Photo Coloring Activity

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Today’s art project is centered around birds! Our girls absolutely love birds and due to being home from school on lockdown I wanted to do a fun activity with them that I knew would help to destress and bring a smile to their faces. Miss 8 has been wanting to do this activity since she did it at school a few weeks back. Thankfully when I was last out at the shops I bought some pastels and ink for the printed so today was the day this activity could happen!

For This Activity You Will Need

Choosing Photos

The first thing we had to do was choose some photos that would be suitable. The birds that we have for you today were all handpicked by Miss 8 and Miss 5 with a little assistance from me.

When choosing a photo it is a good idea to try to select one with a light color background, purely to save ink. We have provided you with 8 bird options that can all be found below. Simply click on the link and print if you are wanting to use one of these photos.

We use a program called Canva to make lots of our printables. Canva is super simple to use and has lots of free features and also the choice to pay for an image. So if you are after a different image from the birds below Canva is a great option.

To use Canva simply follow the link above. Create a design using either the A4 Document or Class Schedule as these sizes work well for printing. From there click on photos and type in your desired photo, for example, “bird”. A list of options will come up and you can click on the photo you like best. Save in a PDF so you can print it later. You can also turn it to black and white at this stage by adjusting the saturation of the photo down to 0.

Or pick one of our photos below, they are all pretty awesome!

Bird Photos To Print

Our girls choose their 8 favorite bird images which are all below. You will see the colored photos of the birds for reference. This and all of the other black and white birds can be printed out by clicking the link under each image. Print one or print them all!

Time To Get Creative

You may notice that our printed images are a slightly green color. Please ignore that, our printed could do with updating. Regardless of our odd shade this activity still works in the same way.

Lay your printed photo onto a solid surface. We placed our onto a magazine and then did it on our table as our table isn’t completely smooth.

Select a pastel and color directly onto the bird image. Use a different color for different parts of the image. You can either try to keep it the correct colors that the bird is or mix it up and use any color your like. Continue coloring until the entire photo has been colored over.

That is all there is to it! So simple I know. Our girls absolutely loved doing this art activity. The end results are a pretty awesome looking bird so it is easy to see why this appeals to kids (and adults) of all ages.